stripling
/ˈstɹɪplɪŋ/
"stripling" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“stripling” is an uncommon English word, ranked #89,950 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #89,950
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A young man in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad. .
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | stripling |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈstɹɪplɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #89,950 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “stripling” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for stripling is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈstɹɪplɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #89,950 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
stripling has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English stripling (“an adolescent, a youth (specifically one who is male); a child”) [and other forms], possibly from strepen (“to remove the clothes of, undress, strip; to peel off; to skin (an animal); to remove; to take something away from so… The correct English form is stripling, spelled S-T-R-I-P-L-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1A young man in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad. .
- 2A seedling with most of the leaves stripped off.
Etymology
From Middle English stripling (“an adolescent, a youth (specifically one who is male); a child”) [and other forms], possibly from strepen (“to remove the clothes of, undress, strip; to peel off; to skin (an animal); to remove; to take something away from someone; to plunder, rob”) (connoting something that is stripped and thin, and yet to reach its full size) + -ling (suffix forming diminutives). Strepen is derived from Old English *strēpan (Anglian), *strīepan, *strīpan, *strȳpan (West Saxon), from Proto-West Germanic *straupijan, from Proto-Germanic *straupijaną (“to strip; to pluck; to wipe”), from *streupaną (“to touch”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *strew-, *sterw-, *ster- (“a strip; a streak; a beam, ray”)) + *-janą (suffix forming causatives from strong verbs with the sense of ‘to cause to do’). The English word is analysable as strip (“long, narrow piece”) + -ling.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “stripling”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-T-R-I-P-L-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈstɹɪplɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.